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Earth

Global Carbon Emissions Jump To All-Time High in 2018 (theguardian.com) 399

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
Global carbon emissions will jump to a record high in 2018, according to a report, dashing hopes a plateau of recent years would be maintained. It means emissions are heading in the opposite direction to the deep cuts urgently needed, say scientists, to fight climate change. From a report: The rise is due to the growing number of cars on the roads and a renaissance of coal use and means the world remains on the track to catastrophic global warming. However, the report's authors said the emissions trend can still be turned around by 2020, if cuts are made in transport, industry and farming emissions. The research by the Global Carbon Project was launched at the UN climate summit in Katowice, Poland, where almost 200 nations are working to turn the vision of tackling climate change agreed in Paris in 2015 into action. The report estimates CO2 emissions will rise by 2.7% in 2018, sharply up on the plateau from 2014-16 and 1.6% rise in 2017.

Almost all countries are contributing to the rise, with emissions in China up 4.7%, in the US by 2.5% and in India by 6.3% in 2018. The EU's emissions are near flat, but this follows a decade of strong falls. "The global rise in carbon emissions is worrying, because to deal with climate change they have to turn around and go to zero eventually," said Prof Corinne Le Quere, at the University of East Anglia,who led the research published in the journal Nature. "We are not seeing action in the way we really need to. This needs to change quickly."
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Global Carbon Emissions Jump To All-Time High in 2018 More

Global Carbon Emissions Jump To All-Time High in 2018

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  • WTF USA? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 10, 2018 @06:35AM (#57778904)

    I can understand under-developed countries like China and India, which are still in their growing years, but the USA 2.5%? There we have the real environmental criminals.

    You have all the nuclear, solar, and wind, and policies, and programs, and abilities to stear the environmental situation, but you just keep burning gas and blowing fumes like nothing.

    • Re: WTF USA? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 10, 2018 @08:24AM (#57779284)

      A Chinese apologist. China is adding more than 250 GW of new coal plants in China, and another 250 GW in other nations before 2021. And yet, you point to America as being horrible. America has been declining for the last 10 years. A 2.5 on 14% is much smaller than a 4.7 rise on 33%.

    • A stronger economy creates higher carbon. Also normally whatever energy savings we find, we will use the excess into an other area, so the net energy use is increased.

      We build more fuel efficient engines, we buy bigger cars and trucks. A company who saves 40% in fuel, will grow their company 80%.

      Now it is political suicide for the leaders to tell their whole population that they need to sacrifice for the greater good, unless there is an opposing army knocking on its borders. And giving our politicians th

    • I can understand under-developed countries like China and India, which are still in their growing years, but the USA 2.5%? There we have the real environmental criminals.

      The simple fact is we have real environmental criminals everywhere. However, they are a minuscule percentage of the population everywhere. Whether that's due to a lack of opportunity is a matter for masturbatory debate. The simple fact is that today, a tiny percentage of the population derives the majority of the profit from the pollution which is occurring.

    • That's easy. It's for a few reasons.
      1) Because we can. You don't think Trump pulled out of the Paris Agreement for nothing did you.
      2) Cheap gas. With a gallon or 3.79 liters of gas selling for $1.97 it's hard to wean off the petrol titties.
      3) size of country and population density. Since we have such a shit national public transport system. Well we don't even HAVE one except private but anyway. We have grown up relying on our cars to get us everywhere. Most city's public transport sucks and that is compo

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Chas ( 5144 )

      China and India are in their "growing years" so I can understand.

      Oi vey. You DO understand that you can't simply "forgive" carbon emissions simply based on "they're growing/modernizing" right?

      Shit like this is why global compacts simply won't work. Because you'll get countries like China/India who will sign on, and then simply continue outputting whatever the hell they feel like.

      And any "carbon trading" system will simply be gamed.

      Now, I'm not saying the US's results are in any way "desirable". They're n

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by rastos1 ( 601318 )

        And it's very EASY to sit back in a country like Germany (with a total area of 138K square miles) and preach about "what ought to be done" in a country like the US (with a total area of 3.7 MILLION square miles). Because hey, logistics is EASY, right?

        But nobody is expecting US to cover all 3.7E6 square miles. How about you cover 13 most densely populated states. The is going to cover area of size of Germany with more population than has Germany. Deal?

  • Global Stupidity (Score:4, Insightful)

    by prefec2 ( 875483 ) on Monday December 10, 2018 @06:36AM (#57778906)

    Global stupidity seems a constant factor on this planet. In some social groups denial of reality is most prominent, because reality challenges their believe and there behavior.

    • Re:Global Stupidity (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Applehu Akbar ( 2968043 ) on Monday December 10, 2018 @06:46AM (#57778928)

      Global stupidity seems a constant factor on this planet. In some social groups denial of reality is most prominent, because reality challenges their believe and there behavior.

      This is an example: https://www.greenpeace.org/usa... [greenpeace.org]

      So after a brief pause gained from a move from coal to gas in major countries, the upward march of carbon resumes.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by tsa ( 15680 )

        We have one or two gas powered electricity plants here in the Netherlands that are switched off because coal is cheaper. And we recently (5 years ago or so) switched on a brand new coal powered one.
        Our government keeps telling us that we are the greenest country in Europe and soon we will be world-leading, but reality tells us we do worse than the US.

      • Re:Global Stupidity (Score:4, Interesting)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Monday December 10, 2018 @07:49AM (#57779128) Homepage Journal

        Actually no, it's not due to a lack of nuclear power. Coal use isn't even increasing, it's decreasing because gas and renewables are cheaper. Even Japan didn't jump up that much after the force 100% nuclear shutdown, only around 10%: https://ycharts.com/indicators... [ycharts.com]

        The reason we are seeing this increase now is twofold.

        1. Some countries are still on the upward part of the curve, e.g. China. Expecting them to immediately start reductions would be insane, it would destroy their economy. But they are on track for their Paris target, which is aggressive to say the least.

        2. Many developed countries are finally recovered from the 2008 financial crash that caused an exceptional fall in emissions due to reduced economic activity. I'm sure someone will start screaming about European emissions increasing any moment now, but in reality they are falling as planned if it were not for that artificial depression.

        The problem with nuclear is that it's way too expensive for what it provides. There is simply no way to justify spending money on it would be much better spent on renewables. Spending on renewables will have a much greater effect on emissions per Euro/Dollar/Yuan spent, and will lessen the economic impact of making the change.

      • Well, there are different causes in different locations. For example, America continues to drop coal and move to wind/Nat ga, in spite of trump. But our buying lower mpg cars is an issue. Thankfully, that is coming to a close as EVs sales rise.
        Then you have China and India. Both of these continue to lots of coal, but the real problem is that as they switch to EVs, they will use loads more coal to power them.
        Until society is willing to say no more fossil fuel electric plants, we will continue to get worse

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Chas ( 5144 )

        Hey, if you can convince our crazed "no nukes" lobby that they're in error, you'll see a slight bump in carbon emissions as we build new plants, followed by a long, sustained dropoff.

        Areas like California will still maintain higher emissions, mainly due to it being a Bad Idea to build nuclear reactors in quake country, but...

    • Blaming others. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by stooo ( 2202012 ) on Monday December 10, 2018 @06:49AM (#57778944) Homepage

      Everybody blames the next guy.
      We are all responsible.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by prefec2 ( 875483 )

        Yes, we are all responsible. However, some people want change, while others hinder change. Therefore, it is necessary to point that out and to try to understand why these people do not want to change. then we can develop narratives which allow them to change. So we all can address the issue.

      • Again, spot-on. Politicians and businesses do not want to take responsibility for their actions. What is needed is for nations to tax all consumed good /services based on where worst part/service comes from. IOW reward those nations/states with best emissions, while slowly raising tax on bad nations/states, to encourage gov/utility to clean up, OR for businesses to not use that area.

        to make this work, need a fair precise means of looking CO2. That would be using satellites like OC2. With a few more SATs, w

    • Global stupidity seems a constant factor on this planet. In some social groups denial of reality is most prominent, because reality challenges their believe and there behavior.

      Some people don't even know what reality is.

      Proof: I've seen "Reality TV" shows.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • The notions of groups, societies and countries are all made up and in the end each person usually thinks only about him/herself and maybe his/her close relatives. People usually couldn't care less about the long term prospects of human kind survival on the planet and life in general and unless we enact the laws which have very direct impact on each soul, AGW will continue unabated. Most people are very primitive and we have to take that into account. Failure to do so could lead to the end of our civilizatio

    • Global stupidity seems a constant factor on this planet. In some social groups denial of reality is most prominent, because reality challenges their believe and there behavior.

      Classic example...

      "their believe" should be "their beliefs".

      "there behavior" should be "their behavior".

      The really appalling thing was that you got "their" right once, but managed to lose it within five words. Which tells me you got it right the one time by pure luck, which applies even to "global stupidity"....

  • ...stuff that doesn't work, like emitting less CO2. We can't. We continue to show it, over and over.

    Instead, put efforts toward something like this:

    https://www.technologyreview.c... [technologyreview.com]

    Make that work, put our money in that, build 'em maybe $750 million worth a year all over the globe, and in 100 years we'll be where we need to be maybe. Certainly the world together could afford $750 million a year?

    Trying to limit CO2 just makes the prices of everything go up, which punts a bunch more people into poverty, wh

    • Re:We Need To Stop Trying... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by sidetrack ( 4550 ) on Monday December 10, 2018 @07:08AM (#57779008) Homepage

      If the learning for various low-carbon alternatives hadn't fallen drastically in the past few years, then I'd say you were correct, but as it is, this rise is just lag in the system I think...

      Wind and solar generation LCOE are now lower than fossil energy generation in much of the world, and their prices are still falling. Fossil generation plant commissioning has dropped dramatically (see GE's profits forecast for their fossil turbine division - for example). TCO of a new electric car is now lower than that of fossil fuelled cars. TCO of heat pumps is lower than gas heating in many parts of the world too.

    • The law of entropy is real and not negotiable, you know that, right?

    • Re:We Need To Stop Trying... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by sidetrack ( 4550 ) on Monday December 10, 2018 @07:26AM (#57779068) Homepage

      See also Lazard's annual analysis of costs for power generation 2018 [lazard.com] and check out the graph on page 7. Coal and gas peaker plants aren't coming back from those sort of price drops, and solar costs are still dropping. Yes, I know this isn't dispatchable generation, but demand-response, and long-distance transmission, will largely get you around that...

      You don't really start needing a lot of storage until renewables are over 50% of the generation mix, and costs are falling for storage rapidly, so that there's a reasonable chance that solar + storage will be the cheapest form of generation by the time we get to 50% renewables (by just replacing generation plant on the usual replacement cycles i.e. without added cost) too.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sidetrack ( 4550 )
      Then there's developments like Allam cycle [wikipedia.org] gas power plants, which have a better basic efficiency than the current fleet of gas power plants, and these have CO2 capture baked in for free as part of the design. Getting someone to pay to bury that CO2 is likely to be way cheaper than paying someone to suck it out of the air at 600ppm, and then bury it.

    • ...stuff that doesn't work, like emitting less CO2. We can't. We continue to show it, over and over.

      Instead, put efforts toward something like this:

      How will they power those plants? They need electricity, just saying.

    • You're a fucking idiot. We can easily emit less CO2. We choose not to. We are very quickly killing our own environment. Being poor won't matter after we're dead.

    • ...stuff that doesn't work, like emitting less CO2. We can't. We continue to show it, over and over

      No. We need to *start* trying. The only thing we continue to show is that we don't give a shit. It's the "I'm all green and ecofriendly but man my house is 22degC OMG, why isn't the AC running" attitude.

  • Quick summary (Score:5, Informative)

    by bradley13 ( 1118935 ) on Monday December 10, 2018 @07:39AM (#57779100) Homepage

    If you look at their data (download the PDF - it has the overview graphs), it's what you expect: CO2 emissions from fossil fuels in the West are declining. China, following massive rises, has plateaued at a high level - on a per capita basis, the same as the EU (shocking, given the number of Chinese living essentially pre-industrial lives).

    On a per capita basis, the US is still far higher than anyone else. However, this has been declining at an impressive pace, and there is no obvious basis for the claim that US consumption will increase in 2018. In fact, that would be a huge trend reversal, and (imho) is likely a politically motivated claim.

    Meanwhile, emissions from India and other Asian countries are increasing rapidly. In fact, they are driving *all* of the global increase, plus compensating for declining emissions everywhere else.

    • And while you're quick to criticism those two also spend far more money on green initiatives in the USA. Point the finger all you want, but what the future is likely to hold is a case study in how you can lift your people out of poverty without emitting what the USA does.

      The first mover advantage works just as much for innovation and technology as it does for crimes, legal loopholes, and industrialising a nation.

  • I people paid the real costs of flying, a lot of problems would be solved. Amsterdam, London and the like would have a LOT less tourists messing up the cities, Uber and Airbnb would go bust and the local would finally get some room to breathe in their own city. Tourists are fine but the maximum number has been crossed a long time ago. Oh, and we also would have an enormous amount less CO2 in the air. Only winners here!

    • Right. That is why emissions are rising. Tourists.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tsa ( 15680 )

        They're a big part. Seriously. Our 'extremely clean' country is building an extra airport just for them.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward

        It is a non-negligible part, yes. Airplanes have lower CO2 emissions per person and mile than cars, but people fly long distances. One trip from the US to Europe causes roughly a quarter of the CO2 emissions that a car emits in a year of average driving.

  • ... about this but the data on this problem is pretty clear: If we don't get a handle on this problem and make it snappy, humanity and the ecosystem as we know it is pretty much screwed.

    Just saying.

    • Thanks for the tip.

    • Yup. But I'm tired of talking and trying to make the world "a better place". I stopped worrying and trying for just long enough to ask "why the fuck?".

      I have no kids.
      I have about 30 years to live.

      Screw the planet and humanity.

  • The statement is that carbon emissions are higher across the globe. It's posited that its due to more cars on the road. However, I suspect that the metrics of newly added cars has not sky-rocketed. And many electric cars have been added. While some use of coal has returned. A lot of renewable energy has been added as well.

    But surely, there wasn't a big trend across the globe. So what is not being said equates to one of two things...

    a) We have been in a global recession and economic decline, and this wa

    • We have been in a global recession and economic decline? Um, what? Energy use is up because manufacturing is up and that causes more CO2 emissions.

  • It's countries behaving according to actual beliefs in CO2 being a problem for global warming, instead of the rhetoric they put forth.

    For many countries, CO2 reduction is just another tool of economic war to the extent they can convince other countries to play along reduces their economic output and prosperity chasing the goal of CO2 reduction instead. That is certainly why China constantly promotes CO2 reduction despite doing essentially nothing to reduce it themselves.

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